Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #708739 in Books
• Published on: 1998-06
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 368 pages

Customer Reviews

A great book for people interested in flying!
I am a 12 year old boy and love anything dealing with airplanes and flying. I found this book fascinating and hard to put down. I loved reading about the Buck boys' adventures as they flew across the country. I also found most interesting the story of how they rebuilt the Piper Cub. The people they met during their travels i.e. airport geezers, mechanics, made the story seem so real to me. This story is not just about flying, however; it is also about father/son relationships. This book does contain a lot of bad language, so it may not be right for everyone. Overall, this is a high-flying piece of literature! Alex Petkofski

Cementing relationships
Not so much a story about 2 mid-teenagers flying from coast to coast across America, but more the story of strained relations between brothers and between father and sons.
It took over 25 years for Rinker Buck to get all this organised in his head, then put it on paper, but it was worth waiting for.
What we get is the straight story, from his point of view, of the preparations and the journey, the turnaround in relations between him and brother Kern, and the two of them dealing with the expectations of a larger-than-life father who, perhaps secretly, wished to relive fame through the exploits of his sons.
Told against the backdrop of ariel incidents, we find that the ebullient schoolboy prankster has to take (literally) a back seat to his shy, reclusive older brother, who suddenly comes out of his shell.
It never descends into maudlin, or goes over-the-top, it is a straight from the shoulder account of the trip and the souring and cementing of relationships - a damn fine read. *****

Outstanding
I bought this for my son, then I read it too. I could really identify since I was driving cross country during that same year in the mid sixties. Don't miss this one.